Joey Wild first picked up a pickleball paddle four years ago at the Pan Am public courts in downtown Austin, Texas, where locals line up for hours waiting to have a hit.
Wild was studying a postgraduate degree in electrical engineering at the University of Texas at the time. He was completely “destroyed” by his opponent that first time he stepped on the court.
Joey Wild is Australia’s No.1 ranked pickleball player.Credit: Glenn Hunt
Now, Wild is Australia’s top-ranked player on the PPA – Pro Pickleball Association – Tour, with a big vision for the sport and himself.
Wild picked up the sport during the COVID-19 lockdowns.
“I kind of needed an outlet,” he said. “I was looking for something to do while I was over there, and a friend randomly invited me out one day to these public courts in Austin to play this game that I’d never heard of, which was pickleball.”
They played a game against two strangers.
“We just got destroyed by them, but it was so fun and ever since then I’ve just kept playing,” Wild said.
“I started by playing once a week, and then I started reaching out to different groups and eventually got up to playing three times a week, then five times a week, and then when I realised I was getting good at the sport, that’s when I started practising properly and taking it pretty seriously.”
The Australian pickleball scene is far from the craze under way in the US, where top-ranked players are full-time athletes who make seven figures. But the local game is starting to catch up, and interest has exploded in the past year.
“It was definitely a night and day difference [between the United States and Australia] in terms of facilities and the amount of people who play and compete,” Wild said.
Wild hits the pickleball courts in the morning before he works 9-5 as an electrical engineer.Credit: Glenn Hunt
“The tournaments here were still using temporary nets that you set up, and putting down tape lines on tennis courts, and things like that. And that’s kind of how training is, as well, for me. In the US, I could rock up to a public park, and they have a bunch of permanent courts set up.”
When he moved back to Australia, it was rare for anyone to know what pickleball was.
“But now I’d say the majority of people I meet or bump into, when they ask what I’m doing or what my bag is … at least [they know] what pickleball is.”
Now Wild is cramming the life of a professional athlete around his career as an electrical engineer, but he hopes it will pay off in a big way.
“My ultimate goal is to play in the Olympics,” he said. “Pickleball is not announced yet as an Olympic sport, but I’m hoping that for the 2032 Games in Brisbane it will be.”
He admitted that eight years was “a long way away”.
